Light painting, painting with light,light drawing, light art performance photography, or sometimes also freezelight are terms that describe photographic techniques of moving a light source while taking a long-exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or space, or to shine light at the camera to 'draw', or by moving the camera itself during exposure of light sources. Practiced since the 1880s, the technique is used for both scientific and artistic purposes, as well as in commercial photography.
Light painting also refers to a technique of image creation using light directly, such as with LEDs on a projective surface using the approach that a painter approaches a canvas.
Light painting dates back to 1889 when Étienne-Jules Marey and Georges Demeny traced human motion in the first known light painting Pathological Walk From in Front. [1]
The technique was used in Frank Gilbreth's work with his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth in 1914 when the pair used small lights and the open shutter of a camera to track the motion of manufacturing and clerical workers.
Man Ray, in his 1935 series "Space Writing," was the first known art photographer to use the technique. He made a self-portrait with a time exposure and while the shutter was open, with a penlight he inscribed his name in cursive script in the space between him and the camera, overwriting the letters with more cryptic marks. [2] [3] Historian of photography Ellen Carey (*1952) describes her discovery of the artist's signature in this image while examining it in 2009. [4]
Photographer Barbara Morgan began making light paintings in 1935–1941. [5] Her 1941 photomontage Pure Energy and Neurotic Man incorporates light drawing and realises her stated aim; "that if I should ever seriously photograph, it would be...the flux of things. I wanted then, and still do, to express the ‘thing’ as part of total flow." [6] In making innovative photographs of dancers, including Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins she would have them move while holding lights.
In 1949 Pablo Picasso was visited by Gjon Mili, a photographer and lighting innovator, who introduced Picasso to his photographs of ice skaters with lights attached to their skates. Immediately Picasso started making images in the air with a small flashlight in a dark room. This series of photos became known as Picasso's "light drawings." Of these photos, the most celebrated and famous is known as Picasso draws a Centaur. [7]
Peter Keetman (1916–2005), who studied photography in Munich from 1935 to 1937, was the 1949 co-founder of FotoForm (together with Otto Steinert, Toni Schneiders et al.), a group with great impact on the new photography in the 50s and 60s in Germany and abroad. He produced a series Schwingungsfigur (oscillating figures) of complex linear meshes, often with moiré effects, using a point-source light on a pendulum. [8]
During the 1970s and '80s Eric Staller [9] used this technology for numerous photo projects that were called "Light Drawings". Light paintings up to 1976 are classified as light drawings. [10]
In 1977 Dean Chamberlain extended the technique using handheld lights to selectively illuminate and/or color parts of the subject or scene with his image Polyethylene Bags On Chaise Longue at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Dean Chamberlain was the first artist to dedicate his entire body of work to the light painting art form. [1] The artist photographer Jacques Pugin made several series of images with the light drawing technique in 1979. [11] Now, with modern light painting, one uses more frequently choreography and performance to photograph and organize.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Steve Mann invented, designed, built, and used various wearable computers to visualize real-world phenomena such as sound waves, radio waves, and sight fields by light painting using computational photography. [13] [14] [15] [16]
Since the 1980s, Vicki DaSilva has been working exclusively in light painting and light graffiti. [17] In 1980, DaSilva [18] started making deliberate text light graffiti works, the first being "Cash". [19] She continued these light graffiti photographs throughout the 1980s and eventually started using 4 foot fluorescent bulbs hooked up to pulley systems to create sheets of light. In the early 2000s she began making work with 8 foot fluorescent lamps, holding the lamp vertically and walking through spaces with it. [20] [21]
From the late 1980s Tokihiro Satō's photographs combine light, time and space in recording his movements in a series beginning with his “photo respirations” where his use of an 8 x 10-inch view camera fitted with a strong neutral-density filter to achieve lengthy exposures lasting one to three hours provide the opportunity for him to move through the landscape. [22] When shooting in daylight, using a mirror, he flashed light from the sun into the camera lens, resulting in points of light and flares that punctuate the image and track his movements, though his presence is not seen directly. For nocturnal or interior views he “draws” with a small torch.
Light painting as an art form enjoyed a surge in popularity in the 21st century, partly due to the increasing availability of dSLR cameras and mobile phone cameras enabling immediate feedback for adjustments of lights and exposure; advances in portable light sources such as LEDs; and the advent of media sharing websites by which practitioners can exchange images and ideas.
In March 2007, JanLeonardo coined the term light art performance photography (LAPP) [23] which emphasises the performative aspect that is evident earlier in Satō's work, [24] and used it to describe the creation of new figures and structures only with light. Following the original Greek meaning of Photography (Greek φῶς, phos, genitive: φωτός, photos, "light" (of the luminary), "brightness" and γράφειν, graphein, "drawing", "carve", "create", "write") it is a symbiosis of light art and photography. The main difference from other light painting or light writing, it has been claimed, [23] is the role of the background in the photo.[ clarification needed ] Locations in the natural landscape or amongst buildings, such as industrial ruins, are carefully researched for distinctive backgrounds for each composition and LED-lamps are often used for contrasting cold and warm light to emphasize the existing structures. Collaboration is usually required in the performance of the work, with one person creating light figures and structures while the other operates the camera. In collaboration with Jörg Miedza, JanLeonardo founded the project LAPP-PRO.de that further developed the technique until in 2011, the pair disassociated. LAPP has grown internationally since its inception. [25] [23]
In 2012, Reid Godshaw created an artistic identity known as "Harmonic Light", creating portraits of people around the world at events and festivals, asking questions to get in tune with subjects' personalities, intentions and motivations to change the world. The work combines many self-taught methods of creating imagery using lasers, custom made LED POV brushes and wands, power drills, handheld RGB flashlights, fiber optics, and even lasers to create a meaningful connection of time and space that embodies how people feel. Godshaw has created imagery at many events around the world including The Grammys in 2019 and over 100 festivals[ citation needed ].
Light painting using handheld lights to selectively illuminate or colour parts of the subject or scene or to evenly light large architectural interiors has been used in professional photography since the 1930s as described by Leslie Walker [26] and Ansel Adams. [27] Light painting requires a slow shutter speed, usually at least a second in duration. Light painting can imitate characteristics of traditional painting; superimposition and transparency can easily be achieved by moving, adding or removing lights or subjects during or between exposures.
Projector light painting, by waving a white translucent flash diffuser in the light path of a portable projector, the continuous motion creates an invisible screen in the air for the projected image in the photo.
Light paintings can be created using a webcam.[ clarification needed ] The painted image can already be seen while drawing by using a monitor or projector. Another technique is the projection of images on to irregular surfaces (such as faces or buildings), in effect "painting" them with light. A photograph or other fixed portrayal of the resulting image is then made.
Kinetic light painting is achieved by moving the camera and is the antithesis of traditional photography. At night, or in a dark room, the camera can be removed from the tripod and used like a paintbrush. For example, using the night sky as the canvas, the camera as the brush and artificially-lit cityscapes as the palette. Putting energy into moving the camera by stroking lights,[ clarification needed ] making patterns and laying down backgrounds can create abstract artistic images. Also known as "camera drag" or "shutter drag".
There are five basic types of light painting or light drawing: Historically they have just been lumped into a category called light painting, there are subclasses of the different ways you can use a light recorder (aka camera) to make photographs of just light or adding subject matter into a light painting or light drawing. A distinction can be made between light painting and light drawings or subgroups of this type of work;
In the 1960s and 1970s a row of computer-controlled light sources attached to a stick was waved back-and-forth or spun (by hand or on a motor) to sequentially "imprint" upon the naked eye (or cameras) images, text, graphics, and graphs (plots of mathematical or recorded or live functions), originally using incandescent lamps at high voltage for quick response, and this system was called S.W.I.M. (Sequential Wave Imprinting Machine). [33] [34] [35] Originally a radar system was used to track the position of the S.W.I.M. to appropriately index into the content so that if it was waved backwards the content played backwards, and if it was waved faster the content played faster, etc., such as to create "virtual" content overlayed in near perfect alignment with physical reality. [36] [37] More modern versions of S.W.I.M. use SDR (Software-Defined Radio) combined with inertial measurement units to track position. [38]
When the S.W.I.M. is waved in a circular motion rather than reciprocally waved back-and-forth, the tracking system only needs to determine speed, but not direction, and is therefore much easier to implement, not requiring a quadrature detector or direction detector or the like. Such rotary S.W.I.M. is often mounted onto the shaft of a motor, so that it does not need to be waved back-and-forth by hand. In this configuration it can continuously display images, text, graphics, and graphs, such as a plot of the rotating magnetic field in the motor, or its rotor current, in coordinates in which the rotary motion of the motor is cancelled out, so as to make visible various functional aspects of the motor in real-time. [39] Rotary S.W.I.M. is also used for realtime visualization of audio, brain activity, and meditation. [40]
This technology is used commercially so that designers and engineers can visualize and understand a complete electric vehicle powertrain, and not just the motor to which the S.W.I.M. is attached. [41]
Early S.W.I.M. sometimes used colored bulbs, but in 1980, L.E.D.-based versions of the S.W.I.M. were made for both hand-held and wearable use to display images, text, graphics, and graphs in color, while the lower voltages made it safer and easier to use in teaching labs as well as near water and even underwater. [42] [43] [44]
Such displays are often attached to individual drones (e.g. rotors of drones) or make use of drone swarms. [45] [46]
The term "persistence of vision display" or "POV display" has been used for LED display devices that compose images by displaying one spatial portion at a time in rapid succession, (for example, one column of pixels every few milliseconds). [47] A two-dimensional POV display is often accomplished by means of rapidly moving a single row of LEDs along a linear or circular path.[ citation needed ] The effect is that the image is perceived as a whole by the viewer as long as the entire path is completed during the visual persistence time of the human eye. A further effect is often to give the illusion of the image floating in mid-air. A three-dimensional POV display is often constructed using a 2D grid of LEDs which is swept or rotated through a volume. [48] POV display devices can be used in combination with long camera exposures to produce light writing. [49]
A common example of this can be seen in the use of bicycle wheel lights that produce patterns. [50]
A variety of light sources can be used, ranging from simple flashlights to dedicated devices like the Hosemaster, which uses a fiber optic light pen. [51] Other sources of light including candles, matches, fireworks, lighter flints, steel wool, glowsticks, and poi are also popular.
A tripod is usually necessary due to the long exposure times involved. Alternatively, the camera may be placed on or braced against a table or other solid support. A shutter release cable or self-timer is generally employed in order to minimize camera shake. Color gels can also be used to color the light sources.
Some light painters make their own dedicated devices to create light trails over the photo background; this can include computer-controlled devices like the Pixelstick. These devices are often Arduino-controlled LED arrays that can render images that could not be made by drawing in the air with a single light source alone. LED lights, luminescent materials, pyrotechnics, fireworks and flashlights are also used.
Light painters also sometimes employ Persistence of Vision (POV) LED instruments, initially designed for flow art forms/performance art such as hula hoops, poi, Fiber optic whips, and staff. These high-speed POV LED wands, whips, and other flow tools are very effectively adapted as light painting brushes due to their focus on usability and maneuverability. Their utility is often further enhanced by the integration of accelerometers, remote control systems, as well as durability leading to much more comfort in creating complex imagery.
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing, and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass communication. A person who makes photographs is called a photographer.
A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture —effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box, which is known as the camera obscura effect. The size of the images depends on the distance between the object and the pinhole.
Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. The first photograph of an astronomical object was taken in 1840, but it was not until the late 19th century that advances in technology allowed for detailed stellar photography. Besides being able to record the details of extended objects such as the Moon, Sun, and planets, modern astrophotography has the ability to image objects outside of the visible spectrum of the human eye such as dim stars, nebulae, and galaxies. This is accomplished through long time exposure as both film and digital cameras can accumulate and sum photons over long periods of time or using specialized optical filters which limit the photons to a certain wavelength.
In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light when taking a photograph. The amount of light that reaches the film or image sensor is proportional to the exposure time. 1⁄500 of a second will let half as much light in as 1⁄250.
In photography and videography, multi-exposure HDR capture is a technique that creates high dynamic range (HDR) images by taking and combining multiple exposures of the same subject matter at different exposures. Combining multiple images in this way results in an image with a greater dynamic range than what would be possible by taking one single image. The technique can also be used to capture video by taking and combining multiple exposures for each frame of the video. The term "HDR" is used frequently to refer to the process of creating HDR images from multiple exposures. Many smartphones have an automated HDR feature that relies on computational imaging techniques to capture and combine multiple exposures.
Combination printing is a photographic technique of using the negatives of two or more images in conjunction with one another to create a single image.
Computational photography refers to digital image capture and processing techniques that use digital computation instead of optical processes. Computational photography can improve the capabilities of a camera, or introduce features that were not possible at all with film-based photography, or reduce the cost or size of camera elements. Examples of computational photography include in-camera computation of digital panoramas, high-dynamic-range images, and light field cameras. Light field cameras use novel optical elements to capture three dimensional scene information which can then be used to produce 3D images, enhanced depth-of-field, and selective de-focusing. Enhanced depth-of-field reduces the need for mechanical focusing systems. All of these features use computational imaging techniques.
The science of photography is the use of chemistry and physics in all aspects of photography. This applies to the camera, its lenses, physical operation of the camera, electronic camera internals, and the process of developing film in order to take and develop pictures properly.
A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light.
Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. A portrait photograph may be artistic or clinical. Frequently, portraits are commissioned for special occasions, such as weddings, school events, or commercial purposes. Portraits can serve many purposes, ranging from usage on a personal web site to display in the lobby of a business.
Night photography refers to the activity of capturing images outdoors at night, between dusk and dawn. Night photographers generally have a choice between using artificial lighting and using a long exposure, exposing the shot for seconds, minutes, or even hours in order to give photosensitive film or an image sensor enough time to capture a desirable image. With the progress of high-speed films, higher-sensitivity digital sensors, wide-aperture lenses, and the ever-greater power of urban lights, night photography is increasingly possible using available light.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to photography:
Long-exposure, time-exposure, or slow-shutter photography involves using a long-duration shutter speed to sharply capture the stationary elements of images while blurring, smearing, or obscuring the moving elements. Long-exposure photography captures one element that conventional photography does not: an extended period of time.
Architectural photography is the subgenre of the photography discipline where the primary emphasis is made to capturing photographs of buildings and similar architectural structures that are both aesthetically pleasing and accurate in terms of representations of their subjects. Architectural photographers are usually skilled in the use of specialized techniques and cameras for producing such specialized photography.
Light writing is an emerging form of stop motion animation wherein still images captured using the technique known as light painting or light drawing are put in sequence thereby creating the optical illusion of movement for the viewer.
Through the Viewfinder (TtV) photography is a photographic or videographic technique in which a photograph or video or motion picture film is shot with one camera through the viewfinder of a second camera. The viewfinder thus acts as a kind of lens filter. The most popular method involves using a digital camera as the image taking camera and an intact twin-lens reflex camera (TLR) or pseudo-TLR as the "viewfinder" camera. TLRs typically have square waist-level viewfinders, with the viewfinder plane at 90 degrees to the image plane. The image in a TLR viewfinder is laterally reversed, i.e. it is a mirror image. Most photographers use a cardboard tube or other apparatus connecting the two cameras in order to eliminate stray light and prevent reflections from appearing on the viewfinder glass or on the lens of the imaging camera.
Fine art nude photography is a genre of fine-art photography which depicts the nude human body with an emphasis on form, composition, emotional content, and other aesthetic qualities. The nude has been a prominent subject of photography since its invention, and played an important role in establishing photography as a fine art medium. The distinction between fine art photography and other subgenres is not absolute, but there are certain defining characteristics.
Abstract photography, sometimes called non-objective, experimental or conceptual photography, is a means of depicting a visual image that does not have an immediate association with the object world and that has been created through the use of photographic equipment, processes or materials. An abstract photograph may isolate a fragment of a natural scene to remove its inherent context from the viewer, it may be purposely staged to create a seemingly unreal appearance from real objects, or it may involve the use of color, light, shadow, texture, shape and/or form to convey a feeling, sensation or impression. The image may be produced using traditional photographic equipment like a camera, darkroom or computer, or it may be created without using a camera by directly manipulating film, paper or other photographic media, including digital presentations.
Cultural property imaging is a necessary part of long term preservation of cultural heritage. While the physical conditions of objects will change over time, imaging serves as a way to document and represent heritage in a moment in time of the life of the item. Different methods of imaging produce results that are applicable in various circumstances. Not every method is appropriate for every object, and not every object needs to be imaged by multiple methods. In addition to preservation and conservation-related concerns, imaging can also serve to enhance research and study of cultural heritage.
Low-key photography is a genre of photography consisting of shooting dark-colored scenes by lowering or dimming the "key" or front light illuminating the scene, and emphasizing natural or artificial light only on specific areas in the frame. This photographic style is usually used to create a mysterious atmosphere, that only suggests various shapes, often graphic, letting the viewer experience the photograph through subjective interpretation and often implies painting objects or the human body with black non-toxic dyes or pigments.